Story:Kings of Strife/Part 7
Part Seven Silverius woke Maria with a gentle jostling on her shoulder. Unlike the last time he had to wake her, she rose quickly and quietly. Once her tired red eyes opened and settled on Silverius, she yawned and slowly sat up. There was still exhaustion on her face; only about two hours had passed since she collapsed to sleep after Silverius retrieved her on the top deck. The dark-haired girl rubbed her eyes as she slowly returned to the world of the conscious. As she did, Silverius began to put together the small amount of belongings the two had. From the stationary cabin and the unmoving world outside the single circular window, it was clear to the both of them that the airship had landed. The atmosphere of the room was tense; quiet. There was nothing for either of them to say right now. After he took her back downstairs, Maria had started to cry on Silverius’ shoulder. He had found little words to comfort her besides his presence, so he simply held her silently. That seemed to do the trick, because she fell asleep shortly after the two returned to their cabin. As stressful and intense their situation was, Silverius had felt a sort of emotional satisfaction to being able to help Maria through her tough times. To be relied on – that was a sensation he hadn’t felt in years. At least, he hadn’t allowed himself to feel that emotion, considering he had been working alone in the mercenary business, for the most part, for the past five years. It had been his personal mission never to get attached to another person, not after the terrible deeds he had done. But if it was with Maria, Silverius found himself realizing that maybe things weren’t so bad… At least, they wouldn’t be so bad if his feelings were as simple as that. Truth be told, he felt more than simple satisfaction at being by her side. He had felt fear. Silverius had been the first person to break into the upper deck from the passenger part of the commuting ship, and he had done so not even thirty minutes after Maria failed to escape. The scene he saw upon surfacing was horrific, so terrible that he thought he would never forget it in all his years of life. It had been enough to freeze him instantly – him, Silverius, one-time soldier of the Inusian military, slaughterer of innocents in the Nneonian Civil War, murderer of his own father, certified mercenary and assassin. There on the top deck in all her glory, Maria had stood with an ethereal blade in one hand and a removed spine in the other. She was covered in blood from head to toe and every pirate on the commuting ship and the pirate ship had been brutally ripped apart. Their injuries varied, from what looked like suicide by ripping their own eyes out, decapitation and disembowelment, to even immolation and spontaneous combustion. That wasn’t even the most horrifying part. When Maria sensed his presence, she turned and looked to him with the most bloodchilling look Silverius had ever seen. Her glare alone was enough to make his veins run cold, so much so that Silverius found himself thinking the girl he was looking at was ostensibly not Maria. She could never have eyes like that. It was impossible. Just like in Troia, her eyes were glowing with an inhuman golden light. The two only looked at each other for a moment before Maria’s gaze softened. She blinked, confused, and dropped both the spine and her odd sword. The blade faded away into nothingness, and the spine splashed in a puddle of blood beneath Maria’s feet. With a moan, she held her head and blinked before falling to her knees. Silverius still could not move, not until the crowd of people who had arrived behind him started to scream in terror. Once they realized Maria was out of commision, the few survivors of the pirate ship slaughter flew away with haste. Silently and morbidly, Silverius threw every corpse overboard into the ocean below, and was eventually accompanied by grim crew members. Only after the deck had been somewhat cleaned did Maria start to stir again, and that was when Silverius gingerly started to help her. None of the other people on the ship would go anywhere near her. He himself kept his distance – until she opened her eyes and showed that they were their normal red coloration. As interesting and exciting as it was traveling with Maria, Silverius could never have imagined she would fill him with so much dread. The mercenary had given Maria his last set of spare clothes, a too-big black shirt and an extra skirt. She wore his black cloak, and he wore his old black jacket. As expected, none of the passengers or crewmen would say a single word or spare a smile to either of them, even without blood covering their outfits. Both Silverius and Maria left the commuting airship in silence, an unspoken curse and desire to never be seen again drifting out of both their imaginations. Silverius gave a wary glance to Maria. She seemed to awake in a much better state than she had been in before her nap, and now seeing the city of Sumfate for the first time seemed to fully revive her naïve, cheerful spirit. She gasped slightly as they walked down the boarding plank of the airship and raised out her hand into the air. Softly, a single snowflake drifted down into her palm and soon melted into a single small droplet of water. He couldn’t help but smile at Maria’s display of almost child-like wonder. “Come on, we’re blocking the way,” he said gently as he slid a hand around her waist and guided her down the plank into the city ahead. “What is this, Crono?” Maria asked. She held the water gingerly and looked at it with slightly open lips. “The water falling from the sky was white. But now…?” “That’s snow,” Silverius replied. “It’s like rain, but almost frozen. It only happens with it’s really cold.” He guided her through the busy streets of Sumfate’s travel district and showed both of their fake IDs to a guard near the airship docks, who nodded at them absentmindedly. Last night after his shower, Silverius had used an illegal counterfeit software on his Datalog to draft a quick source of identification for Maria. “Cold… Yes, you’re right.” Maria looked up to Silverius with wide eyes. “I’m cold.” With her breath came a visible cloud of steam, and she stared at it until it faded away. More snow fell around the two with slow serenity. “Does this happen when it’s cold, too?” “Yes, it does. We’re in Norzaven now, which is to the north of Inusia. Usually, going more north means getting colder, and this is almost as north as it gets.” “The north… Just how big is this world, Crono? Have you seen it all?” Silverius chuckled. “No, not all of it, but I’ve seen a lot. All in all, the world is the biggest thing I can think of. This city is pretty big, too.” Maria took this chance to look around the atmosphere of Sumfate for the first time. By now the two were completely immersed in the southern part of the city, and behind them they could see the waters of the Frogizi Channel lapping up against the airship docks. Ahead stretched a city taunting its peacefulness; Sumfate lacked the large-scale hustle and bustle of Morshia, and was much more in touch with its natural side. Wheras Morshia was ostensibly a modern city accentuated with foliage in an attempt to appear natural, Sumfate had all the touches of a natural world that had technology nudged into it. Large parks and squares existed with just trees, grasses, and benches. A small layer of snow blanketed almost every surface, allowing every colorful building and skyscraper to be in the white palette of an angel for just a short amount of time. The streets were wide and only sparsely populated by people, as if most of the inhabitants were content to stay inside and breathlessly watch the oncoming winter in front of a fire. As always, Silverius felt like this place was too magnificent for a criminal like him to fully enjoy it. He gently guided Maria down the streets as she looked around in tourist-esque wonder. The two walked peacefully as a dark-skinned man without a shirt passed by their side. He was a sharp contrast to the very pale people in the city and Maria, who was quite pale, and Crono, who had a fairly tanned olive complexion. “That man’s skin is so dark, but it’s not very bright at all here,” Maria stated in a hushed voice. “How could this be? Is he from here?” Silverius looked at the man with piteous eyes. “Native Norzavi tend to be dark like that. Before Maxkriv II took the two parts of Norzaven over, an entire group of people were here who lived in the sun for six months and sheltered for another. They were very dark-skinned, and they lived like that for so long that their children have the same dark skin even today. They’re likely descendants of Nneonians.” “Nneonian…?” “Ah… That’s in the south.” Maria nodded studiously. Silverius had to wonder if she was retaining all this information… It was odd, to him, for anyone to really not know such basic facets of the world’s knowledge. What could have happened to her to cause such a loss of memory? “This world is so big,” she said with eyes wide open and darting around energetically. “And so beautiful. I’ll never get tired of looking at it!” Silverius couldn’t help but look at his female companion with a smile. ‘When was the last time someone made me smile like she does?’ He shook his head slightly to get rid of that particular thought. Even to himself, he didn’t want to discuss much of the past. “You’ll have plenty of time to look over some history or a picture book while we’re in the Great Datalog. Would you like that?” Maria’s awed temperament faded once she remembered why they had come here. “That Great Datalog you spoke of… What exactly is it? You called your pocket device a Datalog as well. Why couldn’t you just look at that instead of coming all the way here?” “They’re really not the same, despite the names. The Great Datalog was here much earlier than these dinky little things, and it has more information in general. More history, it goes more in-depth… Really, if you want to know something and can’t find it on the Datanet, one would have to come to the Great Datalog. It’s quite popular.” “And you? What is it you’d like to know, Crono?” “For now, I need to look find out about that object my employers had me steal. If I’ve got an important artifact on me, I need to know how much I can sell it for. Also…” He frowned, and looked down at his black boots. This was an idea he had only started to formulate after seeing Maria’s eyes glow golden for the second time. “I was thinking I might be able to find out something about you. If it were possible to learn anything about your origins, the place to do that would be here.” He looked forward adamantly and tightened his black coat around his body some. The chill of Norzaven was completely different from the breezes of northern Inusia, which made sense; winter was only a few days away, Silverius remembered. “Oh… Well, Crono, I… What if…” Maria’s features contoured in pained disillusionment. Silverius looked over to his companion. “Yeah? What’s up?” “What if you don’t find anything? If there’s nothing to learn about me… What do I start over with? Where do I go?” She looked down now, biting hard on her lip and holding her arms together in a tight self-hug. It was clear that she was struggling internally. Deep inside, Silverius felt the same sense of urging and emotional satisfaction that he had earlier, when she cried on his shoulder. ‘I want to see her smile,’ he realized in an instant. “Well then, I guess you’ll just have to stay with me. After I sell this jewel and get a huge wad of cash, we can travel and look for someplace to settle down in, just you and me. How does that sound?” Silverius made himself smile with reassurance, and when Maria looked up to him, he was sure that the right thing had been said. Her face instantly lit up, and with her smile came a wave of heat to both their faces. “Yes,” she answered breathlessly. “I think I would love that, sir Crono.” Before he could look at Maria’s smiling face with as much admiration as he would have liked, Silverius noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He stopped walking in the almost-deserted street and looked behind Maria, and noticed a figure looking right at the two of them. The figure was of average height, around as tall as Maria was, and stood in the shadows beneath an awning to a closed store. In a city blanketed by white snow and characterized by washed-out pastel colors, this figure stood out oddly because of their brightness. They wore an olive green cloak with the hood up, and beneath the shadows of the hood Silverius could see bright blond hair and bright red eyes. Instantly Silverius was filled with alert fear and adrenaline. “Come on,” he quickly urged Maria as he nudged her waist and took her hand. “We have to hurry.” With her in tow, he started walking down the smooth concrete of the city fast, not daring to look back at the observer. A dark green cloak meant the observer was likely a Scale for the Serpent Society – in other words, they worked for his employers. ‘Shit!’ Silverius thought to himself. ‘I can’t believe this. They haven’t ordered a job in Norzaven in months. How could the Serpent Society have gotten a Scale here already?!’ This was bad. If the two of them had been seen, danger was only a few steps behind them. Suddenly it didn’t look like they would be able to stay in Sumfate City for very long. Maria said something to him, but Silverius instinctively ignored her words and scanned the environment around them. Visiting the Great Datalog would have to wait until they had escaped the eyes of the Scale. It was still relatively early in the morning, so the relatively-empty streets would only continue to fill up as the day went on. Having a battle here would not be advantageous to their low profile. Silverius started towards a nearby park where they could confront their pursuer if he followed them, or escape them. Either way, Silverius was not about to walk around the city with a tail on him. Before turning a corner to Sumfate’s Grand Plaza Park, he took a glance behind him, just to be safe. The pursuer was nowhere to be found. Ten minutes passed once Silverius pulled Maria into a secluded part of the park. He stood there, hand on the handle to his canvas-wrapped gunblade, and looked around the two constantly. They stood on a hill surrounded nicely by leafless trees in a way that he could see around for a good distance, and it was difficult for anyone to see them inside the clearing. The location was strategically picked, and almost ideal for a battle. The only difficult part had been his manipulation of the snow around, which Silverius kicked down the hill to cover their footprints. In the middle of his tense vigil, Maria tugged on Silverius’ sleeve. “I have to use the bathroom, sir Crono… Are we going to the Datalog soon?” He looked up to her with a frown. “Not yet. Just go in the trees or something.” She wrinkled her nose and blushed. “Is that… Can I really do that?” Silverius rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I promise I won’t look. Go ahead.” Maria stood next to him fiddling with her belt for a while before walking off behind him. Despite what he said, Silverius stole a glance at her as she walked off, but only saw the long fabric of his black cloak, the very end of it starting to brush against the snow and staining. The instant he turned away from the clearing’s entrance, Silverius felt a presence beside him and turned, ripping off the canvas on his sword in the process. There, standing right beside him in the olive colored cloak, stood the observer from before. Silverius quickly stepped backwards and pointed his sword right at the person’s face. “Who are you, and how did you find me? Is there anyone else with you?” He kept his voice low enough that Maria, who was some distance away and kneeling as she went about her business, would not hear. The figure looked right into the barrel of his gunblade before glancing up right into Silverius’ face. Right off the bat, he noticed they had a striking coldness in their countenance – almost as if there was no life within their body. Unlike either persona of Maria’s, these eyes were neither encouraging nor frightening. They were simply cold. Inhuman. A quiet, boyish voice echoed out from beneath the observer’s low blond bangs. “Don’t worry. We aren’t with the Serpent Society.” Alarm contorted Silverius’ face. “We…? So there is someone with you.” He took a step back and looked to the ground beneath the stationary figure. Footprints trailed up from down the hill and beyond, so the observer had walked right next to him and evaded notice – all in a moment. What kind of person was he dealing with?! Maria heard him speaking to someone and looked back. “Sir Crono, is everything alright?” When she noticed her companion pointing a sword to an unknown figure, she screamed and covered herself in his cloak. “Stay right there where I can see you!” Silverius commanded. It wouldn’t do for her to run away and seek shelter if someone else was still in the area. “That goes for you, too,” he said as his narrow eyes returned to look over the man in the green hood. “Talk before I blow your jaw out of your face. How did you find me?” The observer stared at him warily before speaking. “We are the guardians of the Crystal, long in rest but at last ready to act. We will always find you as long as you hold the Crystal of Wind. So far you have done well in protecting it… but we have come to intervene, because you are going to die soon.” Silverius narrowed his eyes in an attempt to hide his alarm. “What are you talking about? I… I don’t have any Crystal.” “It is pointless to lie to us. You are wasting time. Soon the Serpent Society will retake your companion and the Crystal along with her. We cannot allow that to happen.” The mysterious blond raised a hand from beneath his dark green cloak and held it out to Silverius expectedly. “Give us the Crystal. It is for the good of the world.” “Wha… What the hell are you talking about?” No matter how he looked at it, nothing this bold man said made any sense. If he really wasn’t a Scale, how could he possibly know about the actions of the Society? Just how much did the society know about Maria? Silverius bit his lip and gave his companion a momentary glance; luckily, she was still safe, albeit looking at the two with fear. The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Silverius was going to get any answers from this enigma in front of him. Only one option was left for him now. “Do not resist,” the observer pressed. He took a step forward, leaving Silverius’ sword pointing right to his nose and lifeless red eyes. “It will make things much easier if you comply.” “You’ve got one more chance to tell me who you are and what you’re doing here before I kill you,” Silverius said darkly. His finger curled around the trigger to his gunblade; his eyes had lost their compassion. With his dark clothes, ruthless demeanor, and menacing pose, Silverius was the example of a threat. Yet, the man in the cloak showed absolutely no fear. He only looked Silverius over before staring at the barrel of his gunblade. “We have the information you seek; the Great Datalog doesn’t. We will await you by the airship docks.” In other words, he had said his final words. Without a moment’s hesitation, Silverius’ finger tightened around the trigger to his gunblade, and he started to pull it. The instant before his finger acted on his command, a sound erupted from the mouth of the clearing, like the crunching of footsteps arriving close to their area. The same instant he pulled the trigger, Silverius took his eyes off the observer and reflexively looked to the source of the sound – and in that same instant, the observer jumped out of the way. Less than a second later, a bullet exploded from the barrel of his gunblade, but it missed its target. Silverius looked back at the observer in awe, but could only see a dark-green blur rushing past him almost faster than his eyes could follow. The hooded man jumped down the clearing’s hill with immense speed, and as the crunching of footsteps from the other side increased in volume, he ran with the same speed in the opposite directions. The man in the Serpent Society cloak had fled faster than Silverius could shoot him, point blank. All the mercenary could do was look down at the bottom of the hill to watch for the approaching footsteps – multiple people, by the sound of them. Slowly, he lowered his blade, breathless. He couldn’t even think. The actions that had just occurred defied logic and all explanation; all he had left was silence. The silence only magnified when three people in matching olive cloaks showed themselves and started up the hill. Although he never would have admitted it, Silverius’ heart began to palpitate with agony as soon as he recognized the people walking towards him and Maria. Halfway up the hill, they seemed to recognize him as well, and in unison all three of the newcomers to the scene lowered their hoods. In front of Silverius stood Kerry Fontaus, Soraya Elfead, and Sebastian Amano – the three Scales he worked with most often, and the three surviving members of his Inusian military squad. The four of them had spent years together, and now they were meeting at the worst possible time. ‘No,’ Silverius thought, his begging barely loud enough to be heard even in his own mind. ‘Not you. Not now.’ Kerry looked up to his best friend with a sad look and a pistol in his hand. “I was hoping we wouldn’t find you here, Crono.” Silverius tightened his grip on his gunblade and struggled to hold back tears. ...End of Part Seven. <-Previous Page | Main Page | Next Page->